Explosion at Turkish airport was 'probably a bomb', experts warn

An explosion that killed one person and caused widespread damage at a Turkish airport on Wednesday appears to have been a bomb, aviation experts have told The Telegraph.

Armed police sealed off part of an airport terminal in Istanbul early this morning after an explosion killed an aircraft cleaner and damaged planes standing hundreds of yards away.

While the cause of the blast is not yet known, it comes amid a wave of Isis-sponsored terror attacks in Turkey and could raise concerns that the group has been able to breach airport security.

Turkish police have not yet commented on the cause of the blast, but British aviation security experts said it was unlikely that it could have been caused by any kind of routine mechanical malfunction on board the plane.

Damage to to the terminal building following the blast. Photo: Rex Features

Damage to windows of the airport also suggest that they had been hit by shrapnel, said Matthew Finn, managing director of the London-based aviation security firm Augmentiq.

"It is too early at this stage to have any definitive thoughts, but what stands out most is what appears to be shrapnel damage on the airport windows, plus the damage done to planes some distance away," he said. "All of these point to it being some kind of bomb.

"Other scenarios don't really stand up. There are things like the cooker in the galley of a plane that could malfunction and hurt someone, but the blast radius is so wide that it looks like it was some kind of device. The question then is how did it get into the airport, and what is security like there?"

Concerned at reports of an incident at Sabiha Gokcen Airport early this morning. My condolences to family of cleaner killed +

The blast took place around 2am (midnight GMT) at Sabiha Gokcen, Istanbul's second airport, as the cleaner was working on a plane belonging to Pegasus airlines, Turkey's main budget carrier. Another cleaner was wounded, officials said. Witnesses reported hearing up to three separate explosions.

The incident was also remarked upon by Richard Moore, Britain's ambassador to Turkey, who expressed his condolences to the family of the cleaner killed in the blast. She was named by Turkish media as Zehra Yamac, 30.

A photo on the website of Turkey's Dogan news agency showed a hole in one plane window. Police armed with rifles and protective vests imposed tight security at entrances to the airport, searching vehicles while a police helicopter circled overhead. It was unclear whether the blast actually took place inside the plane or at a location next to it.

Damage to to the terminal building following the blast Photo: Rex Features

No passengers were in the area at the time of the airport blast, which the Dogan news agency said caused damage to at least three planes as far as 300 metres (330 yards) from each other.

According to its website, Sabiha Gokcen served around 26 million passengers in the first 11 months of the year, less than half the number at the main Ataturk airport on the European side of the city.

The airport said investigations into the cause of the blast were ongoing, and that air traffic was operating normally.

That attack was blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists, like two other deadly strikes in the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the summer.

Turkish authorities have in recent weeks detained several suspected IS members with officials saying they were planning attacks in Istanbul.

Turkish internet servers have also suffered one of the country's worst cyberattacks in recent days, apparently carried out by the hacking group Anonymous, which accuses President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of having tacit support for Isil.

Turkey is also waging an all-out assault on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has staged dozens of deadly attacks against members of the security forces in the southeast of the country.

Meanwhile the banned ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) has also staged a string of usually small-scale attacks in Istanbul over the last months.

Sabiha Gokcen airport, which is named after Turkey's first female fighter pilot, is now owned by Malaysian Airports Holding.

"We are working very closely with the Turkish government and our counterparts to facilitate the investigation, and we await their official report on it," Dato' Azmi Murad, the executive director of Sabiha Gokcen said in a statement.

"The Turkish government has heightened security within the vicinity of the airport, which includes helicopter surveillance," he added.

Binali Yildirim, Turkey's transport minister, said that five planes were damaged and were now being repaired in the airport's hanger.

But he declined to give details on the possible cause.

"At this moment it's too early to give a verdict but I want to emphasise there is no weakness concerning security," he said.